A strange day, without Mark. We went by car, 2 hours (40km) to burethani and from there walked the route at the bottom, to tikedhunga. Most of the road was still accessible by car, so not the most interesting road, but what a view! I'm going to do the hike days mostly in photos, so feast your eyes below :) The most interesting things: itenerary said 1000m up, bu Simon's knee was not so good and we stopped at the foot of a 3500 - step stairs,where the guide shared some wine and I had some nuts. The owners added a couple of tree tomatoes, that tasted surprisingly good. We hopped stones and played around near the waterfall close by after that. Simon, however, decided not to risk his knee, and go back (by car) the ... read more

We planned to do paragliding today. A very popular activity here. The sky is always full. Because of clouds however, we changed our plans and instead hiked up the mountain to where they launch, at sarangkot. The hostel said that was a nice 2.5h hike. .. .. After 5 or six hours of hiking up and up and up, we reached the place where they launched the paragliders. Talked about going. Got the price down to 6000 (40€), but by then, the wind and thermals were not right anymore. Took the taxi down. The whole thing was almoat 900m up, according to Wikipedia. The most interesting part of the hike was at the start. Again, there was a dog that followed us up ('Robert'). We went and took the road less traveled. Trough rice paddies, trough ... read more

We got to pokhara by bus again. It's not the most comfortable way to spend your vacation. Another 9 or so bumpy hours later, we turned into the pokhara bus station. Had an interesting conversation with an Austrian lady, that was doing anthropological research here, about the effectiveness of local medicine practices. She had great trouble getting them to be specific about their trade, treating her like a tourist, even if she spoke Nepali to them. She stayed in Nepal for 10 years in the 80/90s. Apparently, Kathmandu used to have asphalt before the earthquake. Also, there is a huge chance of a bigger earthquake happening soonish. Indicator for that was on 9.3/10 if I remember correctly. (9.7 otherwise). She was also a disaster relief manager and had all released vant permits and paperwork, to set ... read more

Nepal national park, chitwan, is about a 1000km2. We arrived at 7ish in the morning to collect our second guide (minimum) and let us be paddled downstream. The river was teeming with wildlife. Lots of birds, fish, crocodile and deers, on the side. After a few km, we disembarked.the guide started his explanation, about what we could encounter, what to do if rhino's get aggressive and about the behavior of the different animals. Halfway trough the explanation, however, a rhino was heard. We stopped everything and got our cameras out. (see below for photos) After a while we walked further, only to see that the road ahead is blocked, by probably the same rhino. We had to hide a bit until it passed. Moving on, there were some interesting edible plants, tracks, flowers, reeds and watering ... read more

Left the hostel at six'ish and walked to the bus pickup point. There was a bus stop for three or so busses and every 10 seconds a new bus came and another took off. All with just Sanskrit texts on the front and a guy at the entrance that has a lot of money in his hands. He shouts the name of some places, people get in, pay him and the bus gets off. Yesterday, we found that the bus is about 700 roepies pp, but you have to call to make arrangements. In Nepalese. 'your hotel can do that', the site says. They did, but took almost 30% commission on it, without saying. Still, just a few euros :/ We had some time before 6:30, but couldn't see how we would recognize our bus. Asked ... read more